NPR Makes Management Changes

NPR's new CEO is shuffling the management team, appointing a new deputy to oversee daily operations and changing the direction of content strategy, according to USAToday.

Jarl Mohn, a cable TV industry veteran who assumed the top job in July, promoted Loren Mayor, NPR's senior vice president of strategy, to be the company's chief operating officer.

Kinsey Wilson, NPR's chief content officer who was seen as the executive spearheading NPR's digital efforts, will leave at the end of the week.

"Loren will manage the daily operations across the organization, enabling me to focus on areas that most immediately impact content, station relations, philanthropy and corporate underwriting, and audience development," Mohn said in a note to the staff.

NPR's CEO has a difficult task of balancing the interests of NPR's national expansion initiatives and of member stations that pay for programming. NPR's board members are elected by the local stations that are often skeptical of new proposals -- many of them in digital areas -- that may allow listeners to bypass their radio channels.

"Wilson's initiatives were source of anxieties for member stations; his departure underscores prickly relationship between NPR & stations," according to NPR's Media reporter David Folkenflik.